The leadership of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has an overall plan for the country: diversifying existing economies and creating a knowledge economy. And transforming Dubai into a connected, smart city is the leading edge of that plan. The focal points for Dubai's multi-faceted transformation range from smart transportation to deal with a rapid increase in vehicle traffic to addressing environmental concerns and a major overhaul in governance and the services the city provides.
Key take aways from the story below are probably the degree of standardization and connectivity envisioned for Dubai — and that city leaders have already chosen the public and private partners that will work with them during its transformation, including Council Associate Partner Huawei. — Doug Peeples
In addition to more than 100 distinct initiatives in Dubai's smart city strategy the city also wants to transform hundreds of government services into smart ones, and ensure the building blocks of the city, from roads to housing to the electric grid and more, are connected and incorporating the most up-to-date technologies and systems.
As a partner in the Dubai transformation plan Huawei is providing many of the technologies that will make it possible, as profiled in a Computer Weekly article.
Safder Nazir, regional VP for smart cities and IoT at Huawei, mapped out the basics of its role in Dubai's initiatives. "As Huawei continues to provide solutions and services to multiple Dubai industries, including healthcare, education, finance, transportation, energy, standardizing more components of ICT infrastructure — particularly in the IoT area — will help foster this necessary development."
Relying on innovation
Huawei recently launched its Connected City Lighting Solution which provide cities the ability to control each individual street lamp and significantly cut energy costs, a factor that will help the UAE and Dubai achieve environmental and sustainability targets, Nazir said.
He also pointed out that the company in April wrapped up a smart parking pilot project, said to be the first use of narrowband IoT (which works on existing wireless networks). Nazir said NB-IoT will likely become a go-to technology for existing city networks and that the UAE will probably be "among the champions in this new reality."
Of course the reason for investing in innovative technologies that transform cities into connected societies is to make them better places to live and work. "People living in these cities generally have a higher quality of life. Using improved information transfer and analysis, smart cities of the future will have to be able to optimize municipal services, reduce environmental impact and introduce services that enhance their citizens' experience."
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Doug Peeples is a Portland, Oregon-based writer specializing in technology and energy. Follow @smartccouncil on Twitter.